This blog post describes what got me interested in mastery learning in the first place: a new learning technology designed to educate everyone.
I propose a wiki-style website where the public can input prerequisite links and chains needed to learn topics, such as learning addition before multiplication. There would be a visual dependency graph of prerequisites, so you can determine what to learn in order to understand X, and the site could also record what you have previously learned.
Each topic would have to be clearly defined as to what needs to be learned. This may be more difficult for certain abstract topics. For instance, learning division may be more definable than learning to draw. However, I believe even these kinds of topics can be divided into a list of things to be learned. How the list of things to be learned are taught, or how they are tested, I cannot fully answer. But when tested, the prerequisite topics should also be included in the test, to ensure that the test taker remembers previously learned topics.
It is probably best to be tested via an oral exam. This allows the exam audience to analyze the student's thought process (which may be different from other students) and decide if the student understands the material required for the topic. The student will only pass if he knows everything required for the chosen topic.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
On apathetic students
After telling our education reform ideas to colleagues, many of them reply with, "some students just do not care, and only strive for a passing grade to graduate." Since our proposed mastery learning would completely remove grades (you must master the topic to move on), then the worry is that apathetic students would be held back longer and this could cause a strain on the institutions. In this blog post, I discuss how our mastery learning system will have less apathetic students than the current education system.
Apathy plays an important factor when building an education system. Students with passion achieve much more than students without. I remember fellow students in elementary school claiming, "I will NEVER need to know how to do this!" Perhaps a student knowing that he will never apply a particular knowledge in the real world causes apathy. Our mastery learning fixes this problem by allowing students to choose what higher level topics they want to learn, and then the sub-topic prerequisites are chosen automatically. This way the student will always be learning precisely what he wants to learn! I think this will motivate students more than the current system.
But shouldn't ALL students learn X? I personally believe what-to-learn is a choice. It is recommended to learn basic things in order to comfortably live, such as basic math for managing finances.
Certain students will accelerate in topics faster than others. It's reality. One shouldn't feel ashamed to learn a particular topic at a slower rate. People are different. But does this time-to-learn difference cause overpopulations in institutions?
Well, this brings us to another topic which can be better described in a separate post: current institutions need to be revised to provide better education. By "institutions", I am referring to elementary, middle, and high schools and universities. One revision is to remove the notion of "grade levels" and use "topic levels" instead. Not everyone needs to go to "class", but you must take a test (at anytime you wish) to advance the topic. Some students may just wish to study themselves in a library, and only visit the institution for guidance.
Another revision is that teachers should only teach, and should stay away from designing tests, grading, and deciding who passes the class. Teachers should guide students based on the standardized requirements for a particular topic, which is made publicly clear in our proposed system.
There is a need for a more standardized learning system, so that when Joe from Louisiana learns topic X and Mary from New York learns topic X we can safely assume they learned the exact same thing. When learning a new topic that requires understanding X, it is safe to say that Mary and Joe both have sufficient knowledge to understand this new topic, regardless where and how they learned X.
With our proposed system, I believe academic learning will happen at a much greater speed. Students will only struggle with topics at hand, since their previous topics are already mastered. This makes less problems for the student to deal with, and allows the student to focus precisely on the topic area which is most confusing.
More about how to implement such a standardized mastery learning system will be outlined in my next post.
Apathy plays an important factor when building an education system. Students with passion achieve much more than students without. I remember fellow students in elementary school claiming, "I will NEVER need to know how to do this!" Perhaps a student knowing that he will never apply a particular knowledge in the real world causes apathy. Our mastery learning fixes this problem by allowing students to choose what higher level topics they want to learn, and then the sub-topic prerequisites are chosen automatically. This way the student will always be learning precisely what he wants to learn! I think this will motivate students more than the current system.
But shouldn't ALL students learn X? I personally believe what-to-learn is a choice. It is recommended to learn basic things in order to comfortably live, such as basic math for managing finances.
Certain students will accelerate in topics faster than others. It's reality. One shouldn't feel ashamed to learn a particular topic at a slower rate. People are different. But does this time-to-learn difference cause overpopulations in institutions?
Well, this brings us to another topic which can be better described in a separate post: current institutions need to be revised to provide better education. By "institutions", I am referring to elementary, middle, and high schools and universities. One revision is to remove the notion of "grade levels" and use "topic levels" instead. Not everyone needs to go to "class", but you must take a test (at anytime you wish) to advance the topic. Some students may just wish to study themselves in a library, and only visit the institution for guidance.
Another revision is that teachers should only teach, and should stay away from designing tests, grading, and deciding who passes the class. Teachers should guide students based on the standardized requirements for a particular topic, which is made publicly clear in our proposed system.
There is a need for a more standardized learning system, so that when Joe from Louisiana learns topic X and Mary from New York learns topic X we can safely assume they learned the exact same thing. When learning a new topic that requires understanding X, it is safe to say that Mary and Joe both have sufficient knowledge to understand this new topic, regardless where and how they learned X.
With our proposed system, I believe academic learning will happen at a much greater speed. Students will only struggle with topics at hand, since their previous topics are already mastered. This makes less problems for the student to deal with, and allows the student to focus precisely on the topic area which is most confusing.
More about how to implement such a standardized mastery learning system will be outlined in my next post.
On the importance of mastering
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” - Kant
Hello, my name is Daniel and I am a coworker of Daryl (the other contributer). We have similar opinions on changes that are needed in the current education system.
The biggest change needed, which this blog is about, is that students must master topics rather than barely learn them. There are many aspects to this: the benefits vs drawbacks, how to change the education system to make this happen, etc. In this blog post, I will discuss my viewpoint on the importance of mastering topics.
You may have heard the phrase, "Jack of all trades, master of none." This phrase of course refers to a generalist: a person with a wide array of knowledge, the opposite of which is a specialist. Are we saying that it is better to live as a specialist rather than a generalist? Not really. It's okay to know a little about everything, but it is more important to be able to make the connections between ideas.
The above diagram is an example of what we mean. When Joe wants to learn about basket weaving, Joe needs to learn about X, Y and Z. To learn X, he also needs to learn A, B and C, and so on. There is a hierarchical tree of subtopics to learn, and if Joe doesn't know B, it is obvious that Joe cannot fully understand X or basket weaving. Mastering a topic requires mastering a dependency chain of subtopics.
But isn't it okay for Joe to just learn B enough to get by (e.g., a school test grade of B)? No, because Joe's problems may increase exponentially over time! As Joe moves on to bigger and better things in life, he may want to learn about topics that require understanding basket weaving, but he cannot move forward! The point is that mastering the fundamentals is essential to an education that will last a lifetime.
It is the fundamentals that "stick in our head" as we move on to learn new topics. Mastering these fundamentals and connecting them is an important brain exercise that will allow us to solve problems more easily in the future.
As you have probably already guessed, I am not focused on child students, but rather everyone as a student, no matter the age. This is one small difference Daryl and I have. Daryl is more focused on child education (elementary/middle school) since he has kids in this age group.
Hello, my name is Daniel and I am a coworker of Daryl (the other contributer). We have similar opinions on changes that are needed in the current education system.
The biggest change needed, which this blog is about, is that students must master topics rather than barely learn them. There are many aspects to this: the benefits vs drawbacks, how to change the education system to make this happen, etc. In this blog post, I will discuss my viewpoint on the importance of mastering topics.
You may have heard the phrase, "Jack of all trades, master of none." This phrase of course refers to a generalist: a person with a wide array of knowledge, the opposite of which is a specialist. Are we saying that it is better to live as a specialist rather than a generalist? Not really. It's okay to know a little about everything, but it is more important to be able to make the connections between ideas.
The above diagram is an example of what we mean. When Joe wants to learn about basket weaving, Joe needs to learn about X, Y and Z. To learn X, he also needs to learn A, B and C, and so on. There is a hierarchical tree of subtopics to learn, and if Joe doesn't know B, it is obvious that Joe cannot fully understand X or basket weaving. Mastering a topic requires mastering a dependency chain of subtopics.
But isn't it okay for Joe to just learn B enough to get by (e.g., a school test grade of B)? No, because Joe's problems may increase exponentially over time! As Joe moves on to bigger and better things in life, he may want to learn about topics that require understanding basket weaving, but he cannot move forward! The point is that mastering the fundamentals is essential to an education that will last a lifetime.
It is the fundamentals that "stick in our head" as we move on to learn new topics. Mastering these fundamentals and connecting them is an important brain exercise that will allow us to solve problems more easily in the future.
As you have probably already guessed, I am not focused on child students, but rather everyone as a student, no matter the age. This is one small difference Daryl and I have. Daryl is more focused on child education (elementary/middle school) since he has kids in this age group.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)